The thing I love best about Bluesky is trying to piece together the news of the day only from the reactions that bubble to the top of What's Hot

Listen to WATT!!

Wish people in Bible scholarship would learn from this excellent video. Counter-apologetics content is rarely interesting, even if it gets views. Learn to talk about the stuff you like, not merely respond to annoying clowns. Learn to kindly tell your audience, on occasion, to get a fucking grip.

It's part of what makes the Kleins of the world so obnoxious. Say that some position, like being a xenophobe, was of short term political value but that empowering a future fascist regime's unaccountable enforcers was, you know, the death of democracy. Should you do it?

Brian Kilmeade is slavering for the execution of homeless people. This is what mainstream right-wing media is like. You don’t have to say that killing Kirk was right – it wasn’t, it was stupid and ineffective – but the weepy condemnations and tone-policing will not fix or stop what is coming.

Since nothing else is going on, check out the newest BLP episode! Talking child sacrifice in reality today, specifically the Punic “mlk” ritual that left jars of infant corpses buried throughout the Mediterranean. www.patreon.com/posts/ep-22-...

SO many people on the ostensible political left choosing to publicly mourn a white nationalist shows the extent to which we have already lost.

Social media is incredible because you post an artwork you actually like only to find out you should have been working on sexy Watto this whole time

Dawg they won't even agree on M4A or voting Row into law lol

Donald Trump may have killed himself

Mark understands very well all of the loopholes that come with unrealized capital gains but still insists on calling any attempt to regulate this a “shakedown” while also putting taxing for a “fair share” in scare quotes. They love Trump, they just wish he was less crass.

rich people cheat the tax code by borrowing against those same unrealized gains, with assets marked to market for collateral, because the loans aren't taxable as income.

A new wave of liberal Zionist criticism of the Israeli government rings hollow without accountability for the genocide, @simonerzim.bsky.social writes. In this piece, she explores what real teshuva would look like within the Jewish world.

"The dog understands: 'Take it!' It does not understand: 'Put it down!'" True 3,900 years ago when a young Mesopotamian scribe copied the proverb onto a round school tablet; still true today! #cuneiform #Mesopotamia #dogs Tablet: BM U.17207.77, CDLI P346305; sculpture: Louvre AO 4349, CDLI P386356

Thrilled to have @slclunk.brighamyoungmoney.com on the pod to talk about the decidedly less-thrilling Mormon/Evangelical co-production: The Chosen, a show that dares to bring Prestige TV bloat to the gospels and tries to get away with Jew jokes by replacing "Jew" with "Pharisee". Neat!

Recalling even some relatively left-leaning people on here saying they were impressed with Buttigieg and his term under Biden. You folks still drinking this garbage?

reporters talking to the president the way i would ask a cat what he's doing up on the roof there little buddy. how'd you get up there! sweetie!

This is also true about Assyrian reliefs and statues, as discussed in (iirc) wonderful and recent popular level books from @ahpodany.bsky.social and @moudhy.bsky.social.

The very institution that permits archaeology in modern Israel insists its discoveries prove continuity with the modern ethnic nation, and the Israeli government's official position is that modern Israel's continuity with ancient Israel necessitates the erasure and extermination of Palestinians.

What is the Meaning of Ancient Israel? The main question in the history of the ancient Levant today is whether the existence of ancient kingdoms in Judah and Israel has modern political implications. 🧵

This is something I always try to be cautious about when I write my scripts. At the very least if you're making pop history content, as a basis try to find something that will talk about relative consensus positions, or else you run the risk of citing Hannah Arendt on Eichmann.

It's killing me that Israel confiscated, processed and photographed a bunch of snus pouches. Clown country

Fight havers. Explode makers. Kill doers.

It’s child sacrifice day on the pod! This is probably my favorite episode so far, as I explore perhaps the most taboo topic of them all. I try to keep it light?? Get it where you get pods!

This 3 month old interview is very suggestive about the pro-capitulation mindset at places like Harvard and Columbia. Summers says it was *good* that the Biden administration was investigating dozens of schools simply for having Palestine protests.

I think that if you eg watch the last four minutes of this MSNBC segment from May it becomes clear that Summers wants exactly the kind restrictions that are in the offing now. His position is basically “the trump attacks now are bad but the pretext for them was good” www.msnbc.com/the-weekend-...

She smiled for a photo with Netanyahu less than two weeks ago

New ep! NOTE: I put the outro music in yesterday; I claim no responsibility for or foreknowledge of Ozzy’s imminent death. Anywho: We’re at peak Assyria. Esarhaddon succeeds in getting Egypt, but it will prove to be a self-installed sword of Damocles hanging over the empire. Plus, oaths!

Who is this for? What does this accomplish? Why even make this kind of a statement?

Compare and contrast: The response to pushback for having a call with Jeremy Corbyn, the response to pushback for explicitly voting against cutting funds to a country committing genocide and then vocally supporting their “defensive” capabilities

Perhaps the only good shit on bsky in a while is Scott going to war with comics fans who are mad at him for unintelligible reasons.

Trump undefeated at being very funny. Writing to your pedophile bestie "may every day be another ~~wonderful secret~~" and then going on the news and constantly saying "Jeffrey likes em young. Real young! And he's horny for em too. In fact, just like me!" for several years is an all timer gag.

It's snakes, divine dicks, and an aborted siege of Jerusalem on this episode of the Bible Lore Podcast. We enter into the insanity of the 7th century with a bang, and I've also got scholar Eve Feinstein back on to talk more about cultic purity. Tap in!

asking buddhism dot stackexchange why desire is the root of all suffering

Not engaging with this Coaston stuff, you’re all forgetting the number one rule when dealing with contrarian Yglesias orbiters

Bible Lore Monday, this time I’m talking with scholar Eve Feinstein about the concept of “purity” in the Hebrew Bible while we settle in for the reigns of Hezekiah of Judah and Sennacherib of Assyria. Plus! I’m on my way to Rome, where I’ll be filming special content for patrons.

I just had a new piece published on the surprising number of Roman portraits that are uncritically treated as ancient objects but were likely manipulated in modernity. Please check it out! brill.com/view/journal...

As Noah Kulwin has noted, this is not the first time that Dems have shown their hand on their vicious foreign policy positions in relation to impeachment. They did the same shit with Nixon. They consistently refuse to take any opportunity to show daylight between them and the GOP on foreign policy.

btw, we'll be posting main feed eps in VIDEO FORM over on youtube www.youtube.com/watch?v=snny...

luke and dbj are very very funny, glad they have discovered podcast

great but once again years behind the OG

i have a better idea but people might get mad at me for saying it

The media should be reminding readers and viewers of this constantly, but it won't: None of the nuclear sites illegally attacked by the US were hidden or secret. All of them operate under expanded IAEA monitoring, as they have for years. The US bombed safeguarded nuclear sites.

As always, the most clear-eyed analysis comes from @ahjohnson.bsky.social

It's hard to tell if Western leaders are chanting "negotiation" and "international law" while backing Israel's genocide to the hilt as a deliberate insult or because they can't think of anything beyond rote statements.

If you are decrying this war “because it’s unconstitutional” or “it puts American troops in harm’s way” you need to grow up. Bombing Iran is bad because it will kill many Iranians. Full stop. End of story. Centering “constitutionality” and/or American lives is freak shit.

thanks to high speed internet and the near universal acceptance of the Second Screen Experience, your parents can now watch at least 48 hours of cable news every day, enabling them to become less informed about current events than some of the more perceptive dogs